Mobile News and Mobile Info

It’s unsourced, but we’re hearing today that Acer’s first Android phone will be called the A1 and arrive in September. That’s at least the word according to the Phillipine BusinessMirror, and it lines up nicely with our peek inside Acer’s secret roadmap diary at MWC. The touchscreen A1 will apparently launch alongside three other handsets, one of which we’re guessing is the mysterious white C1 pictured above. We’ll see how it goes — hopefully Acer’s second effort is a lot more interesting than its first round of ho-hum WinMo phones.

It’s not the first Swiss watchmaker to decide to get into the phone game, but Ulysse Nardin’s upcoming Chairman could very well take both the “most like a watch” and “most insanely badass” crowns when it’s officially unveiled at Baselworld later this month. Billed as a “hybrid smart phone,” the handset — which, we assure you, you can’t afford — will incorporate a visible, fully-functional kinetic rotor that will apparently assist in providing power, just like you might find in a mechanical wristwatch. Beyond that, we know that it’ll be unlocked, will be limited to just 1,846 pieces, and that Vertu should be feeling the heat right about now. Look for full details around March 26 when Baselworld kicks off, so in the meantime, get to work selling your car, your home, your children, and your soul, but not necessarily in that order. Depends on how deeply you love your car.

The iPhone-world is abuzz with rumors about a next-generation iPhone coming down the product pipeline. The discovery of an “iPhone 2,1″ device roaming the internets has sparked many to speculate that Apple might have a more powerful iPhone planned for launch this year. So, it was only a matter of time before iPhone “4G” concepts started to trickle into the blogosphere.

This concept image of an iPhone 4G (which is actually limited to 3G networks, and not compatible with 4G technologies as the name might suggest) that you see here takes Apple’s new unibody MacBook design aesthetic and marries it with the iPhone’s slate form-factor. The concept has the iPhone 4G rocking an upgraded 3.2-megapixel camera, GPS navigation, 32GB of on-board storage, and a removable battery – many of the features that iPhone users have been hoping to see since the original iPhone launched in 2007.

More importantly, the iPhone 4G concept is a beauty. The sharp edges probably wouldn’t work out so well in the real world, but if the next iPhone looks anything like this concept, we’re already sold.

The Windows Mobile 6.5 update is right around the corner, and just as we expected, more alleged Windows Mobile 6.5 screenshots have made their way to our inbox.

We say “alleged” because these new WinMo screenshots show the same honeycomb homescreen that we first saw in those still-suspect Windows Mobile 6.5 leaks from France. Other more recently leaked screenshots depict a Windows Mobile 6.5 homescreen more in line with the WinMo 6.1 homescreen, especially the sliding-panel UI from the Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard OS.

This new set of Windows Mobile 6.5 images also includes a look at the revamped Internet Explorer Mobile 6 (IE6-on-6, as Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) would have us call it), complete with a zoom-bar, navigational controls along the bottom-edge of the screen, and a transparent menu bar up top (like Vista, but not as cool). Mobility Site points out that the “X” close-button in the Mobile IE 6 screenshots looks like it could definitely use some spit and polish – Windows Mobile 6.5 is still likely undergoing last-second tweaks refinements before its unveiling on the world-stage at Mobile World Congress next month in Barcelona.

We want to believe that the touch-optimized honeycomb Windows Mobile 6.5 homescreen image will turn out to be a legitimate WM6.5 feature, but it’s hard to see that honeycomb design aesthetic fitting in with the rest of WM6.5’s more traditional UI-styling (more of an evolution on WM6.1 than a revolutionary update). Of course, there’s nothing stopping Microsoft from slapping a bit of finger-friendly makeup on the Windows Mobile 6.1’s menu-loving UI and calling it a day.

On the upside, it seems the fine code-monkeys over at xda-developers are ready to port WinMo6.5 to just about any HTC smartphone on market. Which is a good thing, because Microsoft is apparently making Windows Mobile 6.5 available on new devices only. Read the rest of this entry »

A quick little tidbit here for iPhone, iPod Touch and G1 users.

The Google Mobile Blog has announced the integration of new search results pages for iPhone and Android. Search results have been optimized to load faster and are formatted to fit just perfect on the device’s display. The new results pages are available in U.S. English for Android… the iPhone and iPod Touch devices with firmware 2.x.

In addition, Google has added touchscreen buttons and expandable maps for local business results. Kudos to Google for making search just a little more friendlier for iPhone, iPod Touch and G1 users.

Liquid camera lens using water and sound

Sure, pixel count and optical quality are key to determining a cameraphone’s worth. But, not much consideration is given to the size of the camera module in today’s high-end cameraphones. Smaller camera lenses make for smaller camera modules – in turn making for smaller, slimmer, and more power-efficient cameraphones.

Different research teams are looking into leveraging the refractive power of liquids for camera modules. There are already liquid-lens camera modules in production from Seiko and Varioptic, but those particular systems require constant voltage to maintain a focused lens surface – a waste of precious energy when you’re looking to save as much juice as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Polaroid has partnered with O2UK, to sell it’s PoGo Instant Mobile Printer . This accessory will now be sold in all 480 of O2’s retail stores. The PoGo weighs in a 8 ounces, and uses Bluetooth to transfer images for printing. Read the rest of this entry »